The Savvy Aviator

When the co-owner of a 1976 Cessna 172M contacted me, she had just come from talking to her mechanic and was clearly in a state of sticker shock: “Where can I locate a used battery box for my Skyhawk without having to rob a bank? Our Gill battery (that has constantly leaked from shortly after […]

Bob, the owner of a Cessna 172RG, found himself in an unexpected predicament. Seems he had an unfortunate gear-up landing. The airplane suffered only minimal damage, largely limited to minor belly damage and the outer four inches of the prop tips curled back. The engine had only about 100 hours SMOH at the time of […]

How many of you have had the experience of putting your airplane in the shop — perhaps for an annual inspection, to correct some squawk or even for a routine oil change or spark -plug rotation — only to discover when you get the airplane back and take it aloft for the first time after […]

Last July, I made my annual pilgrimage to EAA AirVenture in Oshkosh, Wis., with a detour to Cadillac, Mich. The purpose of the detour was to participate in a pre-AirVenture floatplane weekend organized by AVweb columnist Rick Durden (The Pilot’s Lounge). The Cadillac Lake shindig is an informal affair where a bunch of pilots spend […]

Recently, I attended a two-day, FAA-sponsored, aviation maintenance symposium in Southern California, along with a few thousand other A&P mechanics who were there to renew their Inspection Authorizations. The symposium featured many informative presentations by experts in many different facets of aircraft maintenance. One that I found particularly fascinating — and also frightening — was […]

I got the idea for this column as I was finishing up this year’s “annual ordeal” on my airplane. Because I do all my own maintenance, I tend to get a bit grumpy that time of year (or so says my wife). This year, I had to pull the #3 cylinder off of my right […]

My recent columns about reliability-centered maintenance (RCM) have elicited some interesting questions from readers. Here are some questions I’ve been asked, along with my answers. Quarter-Century-Old Engines? Mike:I read with very great interest your latest article regarding operating engines beyond the recommended TBO. My personal observation is that many engines are needlessly overhauled way too […]

For three decades, the airlines and military have been using the principles of reliability-centered maintenance to achieve drastic reductions in maintenance cost while actually improving reliability (discussed in last month’s column). The lion’s share of this improvement in maintenance cost-effectiveness has come from a major shift away from fixed overhaul, replacement or retirement intervals towards […]

More than 30 years ago, in 1974, the U.S. Department of Defense commissioned United Airlines to prepare a report on the techniques used by the airline industry to develop cost-efficient maintenance programs for civil airliners. The resulting report, titled Reliability-Centered Maintenance (F. S. Nowlan & H. Heap, National Technical Information Service, 1978) described a radically […]

As many of you know, I’ve owned, flown and maintained a Cessna T310R for the past 20 years, powered by a pair of Teledyne Continental Motors TSIO-520-BB engines. I’ve achieved remarkable longevity from the cylinders on these engines — 10 out of 12 are still originals with more than 4000 hours in service so far.But […]